Humble Harrison admits mistakes

Audley Harrison today taught Naseem Hamed a lesson in how to be humble as the Olympic champion admitted making a series of mistakes during the process of securing his fifth straight win as a professional boxer.

Just three days after a dire performance in outpointing Spanish featherweight Manuel Calvo at the London Arena, Sheffield- based Hamed returned to the capital to see Harrison outpoint rival British heavyweight prospect Mark Krence at the ExCel Arena in Docklands.

But while Hamed had turned loyal supporters against him by refusing to concede a solitary failing against Calvo, Harrison held a hand up and acknowledged a far-from-perfect performance against a brave opponent.

"I didn't cut him down as well as I could have cut him down," said the 30-year-old Londoner. "And my timing definitely wasn't 100 per cent.

"Krence also caught me with a couple of good punches. But I didn't mind that. At some point in a fight you are going to have to take some punches and that is all part of the learning curve. You have to learn how to deal with them and overcome them."

Harrison's problem is that he insists on learning the professional game, a very different animal to amateur boxing in which he won gold medals at the Commonwealth and Olympic Games, as top of the bill on shows broadcast by the BBC.

That means his mistakes come in for closer scrutiny. Yet few among the packed ringside crowd of 2,000 that included former world champion Frank Bruno and Lennox Lewis's business manager Adrian Ogun, or watching on television, could have been unhappy with a win judged 58-55 in Harrison's favour by referee John Keane. Krence, four years younger than Harrison and boasting a superior unbeaten record of 11 fights, was a real test. Harrison said: "I was against a national amateur champion, ambitious as hell, a fit guy who wanted to stay in there and fight me. But I was able to dominate most of the rounds.

"You have got to give Krence credit and respect. He definitely didn't come to lie down. He was busted up quite badly in there but he gutted it out and he threw punches back."

Harrison looked sharp and powerful in spurts, such as in the second round when a hard right forced his former sparring partner to take a count. But after half distance Harrison took his foot off the gas.

Colin McMillan, the former world featherweight champion who now manages Harrison, was spot on when he said: "For the first three rounds Audley boxed lovely. But after that he thought he could take this guy out and he switched off.

"But the pro game is all about learning. Audley now knows that if he had maintained his focus then by the fourth round the fight would have been over.

"In a way I'm quite happy it went six rounds. It is all well and good knocking people out in one or two rounds, but you don't learn anything like that."